


The Weight of Living

by Pinnithin



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Catharsis, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post canon, Survivor Guilt, hey can we get these guys some therapy, rated teen for swears i promise this isnt saucy, reversal of the 'there was only one bed' trope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27333409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pinnithin/pseuds/Pinnithin
Summary: When the rift in space was sealed and the Resonance Cascade had ended, one glaring problem remained: they were homeless. Not in the “dire financial straits” way so much as the “our living quarters were destroyed by an interdimensional anomaly” way. It was midnight when they left the Chuck E. Cheese, and they had nowhere to go.Hi I wrote this to cope. Sometimes you just gotta have a nervous breakdown in a hotel room with the love of your life.
Relationships: Tommy Coolatta/Gordon Freeman
Comments: 27
Kudos: 170





	The Weight of Living

It was never really discussed that Gordon would go with Tommy. It just sort of happened. Bubby and Dr. Coomer had dispersed to figure out their own way, and Tommy’s father had vanished to deal with some vast, cosmic problem. Once they were alone in the parking lot, Gordon had grabbed Tommy by his lapels and kissed him, searing him to his core like a solar flare.

They drove. Las Cruces was sleepy and dim; the only businesses open in the middle of the night were 24 hour diners and the Walmart Supercenter. They stopped to venture into that liminal space, numbly picking up packets of clean underwear and cheap t-shirts and armfuls of snacks while the employees they passed quietly stocked shelves. It felt surreal, dreamlike after the chaos and gunfire of the past week. Tommy found himself on edge despite the lack of danger as they wandered the aisles, bathed under the incandescent light.

Tommy paid. Gordon’s wallet had been destroyed along with his locker.

Gordon dozed with his head against the window pane, drifting in and out of consciousness, mumbling half-baked observations as he fought to stay awake. Stuff about the night sky and funny billboards they passed, his voice low and soft in his exhaustion. “There’s a La Quinta over there,” he murmured sleepily, and Tommy pulled in.

A double room was $55 a night. They must’ve looked awful, standing at the reception desk in their bloodstained clothes, plastic grocery bags in hand, one man half dead with exhaustion and the other a rubber band about to snap. The receptionist made the transaction without comment, smiling mildly as they handed over the envelope with their keycards.

“Down the hall to your left,” they said, and Tommy steered Gordon in the right direction.

Perhaps this was one of those situations that should have warranted some nervousness on Tommy’s part. He and Gordon, alone together in a hotel room. Their relationship didn’t exactly fall into any category Tommy would have previously considered: they were strangers not even a week ago, but living through the worst experience of their respective lives together had drawn them to certain unnameable proximity. He felt a twinge of loss as he swiped the key card and unlocked the door. This should have thrilled him. In another life, they would have been able to do this like real people - flirt in passing in the break room and take each other out to dinner and maybe fool around later after a bottle of wine.

Now they were both just tired.

The room was clean, decorated with that bland tackiness that marked a place as temporary. They deposited their grocery bags on the desk and Gordon drifted to the bathroom while Tommy stocked their perishables in the mini fridge. He heard the water cut on. 

Keeping himself busy, he took out the phone charger he’d bought and removed it from the packaging, casting around a moment for Gordon’s phone before remembering it was gone along with his wallet. He plugged his own cell in instead, standing in that little aisle between the beds where the nightstand was. Connected his phone to the hotel wifi. That’s another thing Gordon would need, he thought as he mindlessly opened messages and didn’t answer them. A phone and a wallet and an apartment and a ring of keys to call his own and a bed and a good night’s sleep and a job he didn’t hate and -

He locked his phone. At least right now he was getting a shower. Gordon deserved a lot of things - a shower was a decent start.

Tommy removed his shoes, which were all but ruined. Undid his tie and shucked off his lab coat, folding them neatly out of habit even though he immediately crossed the room to pitch them in the trash. His ears were ringing with a staticky fuzz in the calm silence, like they were expecting a flash grenade or the wail of a monster that would never come. 

It was over. It was over. 

The water cut off, and after some shuffling the bathroom door opened, letting out an exhale of steam. Gordon emerged, looking more human than Tommy had ever seen him.

He didn’t know why he felt the need to avert his eyes. It wasn’t like he was naked as he stood there in his one dollar pair of Hanes and his three dollar souvenir shirt and his gentle smile that couldn’t possibly have a price. Hair soft and clean, steadily drying in the open air, falling freely around his shoulders. The HEV suit had made Gordon’s silhouette hard around the edges, solid and unyielding, but now his shoulders were sloped in a relaxed set of parenthesis.

Soft and achingly mortal. How he survived all this was a miracle. Tommy only stared at him a little like that.

Gordon caught his gaze and raised his eyebrows ever so slightly. “What?”

Tommy faltered. “Here’s - I - you can use my phone if you need to make any calls,” he said, nodding to where the device sat on the table. “I left it unlocked.”

He quickly hurried past him to the bathroom, snatching the grocery bag with his clothes in it on the way. 

\---

He was never looking at showers the same way ever again.

Tommy found himself running his fingers through his hair over and over afterward as he stood in front of the mirror. Clean, clean, finally clean. A quick pass over his jaw and he felt stubble. Too bad he forgot to pick up a razor.

He didn’t know wearing clean clothes could feel so much like putting on new skin, how much he took that luxury for granted before the events of the past week. He ripped the tag out of the shirt collar, flicked it in the trash, and pulled it over his head. Once he’d slipped on a pair of sweatpants - glorious, comfortable - he left the bathroom.

Bare feet on carpet felt good, too, even though it was that questionable, threadbare hotel carpet. There was just this inherent sensation of being able to breathe, finally, after peeling off the layers of blood and sweat and dirt that the Resonance Cascade had coated them with. The lights were all out except for the lamp on the nightstand. Tommy was ready to collapse into bed.

He stopped short when he saw Gordon, still awake at the edge of the bed he’d picked, the one closest to the window. His legs were tucked up criss-crossed and he was staring at his hands, loosely interlaced in his lap. He looked up at Tommy’s approach and his breath audibly caught.

No one had ever looked at Tommy like that before. Like he was some kind of unexpected gift.

Gordon finally found his voice. “That shirt looks good on you.”

Tommy glanced down, caught the Chuck E Cheese logo with its mascot printed on its surface, and snorted out a laugh. “Thanks,” he said. “Yours is good, too.”

“Yeah?” Gordon asked, smiling despite his exhaustion. He was wearing a shirt with chili peppers - one green and one red - and the text  _ Go Both Ways  _ stamped across the front. “I thought it was befitting.”

Chuckling, Tommy sat at the edge of the other bed, and his legs stretched long enough to almost bridge the gap between the two. He checked the clock. It was 01:15.

“You’re - I thought you’d be asleep already,” he admitted.

Gordon shook his head, still openly staring. “Couldn’t,” was all he said.

He didn’t have to elaborate. The safety in numbers instinct had ingrained upon them so rapidly in Black Mesa that it was difficult to imagine sleeping without someone taking watch. Even in this dingy hotel room, miles away from what used to be the facility, neither of them felt completely safe. Probably wouldn’t for a while.

“I’ll be right here, Mr. Freeman,” Tommy told Gordon, indicating his side of the room.

Gordon nodded, his smile fragile. “Okay.”

“It’s over,” he said, firmly, in as much an attempt to convince himself as it was for Gordon’s sake.

He nodded again. “Yeah.”

They sat there like that, the distance yawning between them, waiting for the other to speak. There was so much to be said, and hurtling through hell they had never been able to find the time or space to say it. Now, it was like the weight of their words would shatter them if they voiced them aloud. The space between the set of beds may as well have been the ocean.

Tommy broke the silence. “Do you wanna-”

“Yeah.”

And then Gordon Freeman was climbing into bed with him.

Tommy felt a brief swoop of panic in his stomach at the willingness with which the other man did so. It shouldn’t have felt so natural, to scoot aside and make room for him, to settle against the pillows together, Gordon on the right side and Tommy on the left. But they’d done this before, hadn’t they? Resting with their backs to a wall so they couldn’t be crept up upon, shoulder to shoulder, bone tired, weapon in hand. Rather, weapon  _ as _ hand.

A hotel double in a La Quinta was not quite the same thing, but Tommy couldn’t imagine sleeping alone right now, and he suspected Gordon felt the same way. He’d clambered in close but not too close, keeping to his side of the bed so Tommy could have his space. Something welled up in his chest as he watched Gordon situate himself, pulling the covers back with careful hands, and he took a moment to examine how he felt. 

This wasn’t a thrill of proximity, and his pulse didn’t race rabbitlike under his skin at the thought of Gordon sleeping with him. It was quieter than that. Gentler. An affection that crept up on him slow like a sunbeam across a hardwood floor. Gordon, here beside him, wonderfully human as he was. Just as he had been the entire week, and as Tommy hoped he would be for weeks to come. The thought of them folding into sleep together was a comfort. It felt… right.

It felt like home.

Once Gordon had set his glasses on the bedside table, he gave Tommy a weary smile. “Goodnight, Tommy.”

“Goodnight.”

He reached for the light switch, but his hand hesitated midair. Several seconds of stillness passed where Tommy watched him carefully.

Then the muscles of Gordon’s throat worked delicately as he found his voice. The words came out unstable. “Shit... I really can’t do this, huh?”

Tommy understood all at once what the problem was. The last time the room had cut to black, foreign hands held him fast and a blade cleaved through his arm. Sure, his father had given the limb back to him, but the fear the incident birthed had crawled inside him and settled there, stuck tight to his lungs.

Tommy chose his words carefully. “You can um, you can leave it on,” he said. “If you want. It won’t bother me.”

Gordon balled his hand into a shaking fist and let it drop to his side. The laugh he let out was soured. “I shouldn’t have to. I sh - I should be able to turn the fucking lights off, man.”

It didn’t matter what he should have been able to do; the fact remained that he couldn’t, and probably wouldn’t for a long while. Tommy didn’t know how to tell him that without sounding like some detached, emotionless asshole, so he remained silent. Gordon kept his eyes on the duvet. His hand was still in a fist.

“This week fucking took everything from me,” he said, so quiet he was almost inaudible.

“It - yeah,” Tommy agreed softly. “It was pretty fucked up.”

Another humorless laugh hissed out of him. “It was so fucked up,” he nodded, his words teetering on the precipice of something. “God, Tommy, it was so fucking fucked up. Why did we-“ half a sob choked out of him. “Why did it have to be us?”

“Mr. Freeman...”

“We went through all that bullshit and everyone at Black Mesa still  _ died _ . We didn’t save a single fucking person, and now I can’t even - I can’t - I c - c-“

Gordon pressed the heel of his hand so hard against his teeth Tommy worried he was going to draw blood. Tentatively, he reached out to touch his shoulder, light and questioning. Gordon leaned into it immediately as he fell to pieces, curling in against Tommy while short, gasping breaths ran through him. 

As soon as he was certain the other man wanted to be held, Tommy slid both arms around Gordon and pulled him in tight.

Gordon was suffocating at the bottom of the ocean, finding himself face to face with everything he’d done all at once. Tommy held him close as sob after shuddering sob wrenched out of him. There were no words to make this better, to undo what had happened to them. He rested his chin on top of Gordon’s head and let him cry messily into his shirt.

The sound of his grief was awful. Something small broke inside Tommy upon hearing it. He threaded an idle hand in his hair, running through the dampened locks over and over, a repetition to soothe himself and Gordon in equal measure. He smelled like salt and cheap hotel soap, and his sobs rolled through him like tidal waves. 

This hurt. This was good and it hurt. This was good for him. 

Gordon fell asleep like that, against Tommy’s chest, completely worn out. There was a damp spot of tears and drool on Tommy’s shirt, which he didn’t mind, whisking it away with a small wave of his free hand. He kept his other hand buried in his hair, holding him close until his eyes drifted shut, too.

He left the light on.

\---

Gordon slept for eighteen hours. 

Tommy slept for ten, which was still a lot considering his usual sleeping habits. When he awoke with Gordon still curled up against him, one heavy arm slung around his waist, he nearly forgot how to breathe. His face was soft and yielding, untroubled by gunfire and alien teeth as he slumbered. Tommy took a moment just to stare at him like that, small and quiet and temporal. He was beautiful.

How could someone so soft and lovely endure so much? How could he keep that heart full of love through all that pain? Whoever Gordon Freeman had been at the start of this disaster, he certainly wasn’t the same person now, even as he slept so deep and gentle into the crook of Tommy’s shoulder. Tears welled suddenly in his eyes and he brushed them away with haste.

It was a perversion of humanity, a death of the self. What an injustice. 

He eventually extricated himself from the warm tangle of limbs under the covers, leaving Gordon to doze into the hotel pillow without much disturbance. He took care of all those things that humans needed to take care of upon awakening - used the bathroom, washed his face, brushed his teeth. Normal. This was what normal was. As he got dressed, he avoided looking at his reflection in the mirror. 

Tommy busied himself until Gordon awoke. He took out the trash in the wastebin - it reeked from their discarded clothing - and walked it to the dumpster out back. He unloaded the rest of their purchases from the previous night, sorting and organizing them on the polished wooden desk. Pairs of socks, a cheap wristwatch, a packet of hair ties. His and Gordon’s. Gordon’s and his. His hand paused over an empty picture frame he had watched Gordon grab off the Walmart shelf on impulse.

The smiling, watermarked child that stood in as a placeholder for a real photo was identical to the one Gordon had kept in his old locker. Tommy traced his finger along the edge of the frame and smiled. He set it on the desk next to his wallet.

He paced. Showered again. Thought about turning on the TV and decided against it. He didn’t want the noise to wake his companion.

He was sitting against the foot of the bed and scrolling through apartment listings on his phone when a muffled noise signaled Gordon waking. Tommy set his phone down and watched the other man shift and yawn, blinking sleepily as he raised his head to look around. There was a brief flicker of confusion in his eyes before they landed on Tommy, and his expression relaxed. 

“Mornin,’” he mumbled. His voice was low and hoarse from days’ worth of shouting, coming out of him in a lovely purr. 

Affection spread slow and warm in Tommy’s chest. “It’s seven o’clock in the evening,” he informed him.

Gordon scratched his head, hair tousled and wonderfully messy. “How long was I out?” he asked.

Tommy told him. 

“Fuck,” he said. “Alright.” He raised his arms overhead in a massive stretch. “Gotta… get back on a routine, huh?”

Tommy liked Gordon like this. Muted and calm, not fully awake, words slow to rise to his mouth. “We’ll figure it out,” he assured him.

They had time, here. In this temporary home they’d made for themselves.

Gordon’s gaze stuck on Tommy for a while longer until he registered the distance away he sat, the glow of the lamp on the bedside table, still alight from the previous night. His breath hitched suddenly in his throat. “Oh, shit,” he uttered, dropping his eyes self-consciously to the comforter. “Tommy, I’m sorry. I like - I just kinda fell apart there.”

“I’m - I think you had every right to, Mr. Freeman,” Tommy intoned quietly. “You went through a lot.”

“So did you, man,” Gordon replied immediately, dark eyes snapping back up to meet his. “So did you. Thank you for being there for me.”

Tommy didn’t acknowledge his answer fully. He spun his phone around in a circle with his index finger and said nothing. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Gordon with the heaviness that now settled in the pit of his stomach. He did. He just didn’t know how to articulate it, how to take it out and examine it under the light and untangle it thread by painful thread. It was safest, he felt, to leave it untouched for the time being.

“Anyway I’m starving,” Gordon said finally, sensing Tommy’s discomfort and changing the subject appropriately. “You wanna like, order takeout or something?”

He nodded. Takeout sounded good.

The following hours passed, in which Tommy and Gordon slowly remembered how to be human. They remembered the taste of cheap noodles out of styrofoam containers. They remembered the dull roar of cars on the distant highway. They remembered laughter, passing Tommy’s phone back and forth to share funny videos.

They didn’t go anywhere – there was little to do in Las Cruces in the middle of the night, and they were both a little fragile to drive to the nearest city with its loud noises and flashing lights. Instead, they tightroped between close and casual in the quiet cocoon of the hotel room.

Some activities were perfectly safe. Mundane and natural. Watching old game show reruns, throwing out guesses and commentaries at the Wheel of Fortune contestants like it was a football game. It felt good, caring about something that had such little consequence.

Other things felt so desperately intimate Tommy thought he might drown. Working out the knots in one another’s shoulders, skin on scar-tallied skin, after carrying the collective weight of the world together. Tommy was struck by how impossible it seemed, that this soft, wordless love was their reward for what they endured.

It didn’t feel entirely real to him. He didn’t feel like he deserved it.

Morning began to dawn, thin and pale, behind the window. Tommy drew back the curtain and watched the distant desert bleed with gold. Behind him, he heard Gordon yawn.

“You should sleep,” Tommy suggested quietly.

When this was met with silence, he turned to look at Gordon, where he sat cross-legged on the bed that was still made. He had the hotel notepad balanced on one knee, glasses halfway down the bridge of his nose as he wrote something down. He raised his eyes to look at Tommy when he noticed him watching.

“Huh?” he asked.

“If you’re tired, you should sleep,” Tommy reiterated.

“Oh, no I’m-“ his sentence was split by another yawn. “I mean, I am. But I can-“ he flicked a look to the alarm clock on the bedside table. The face read 06:27. “I can stay up a few more hours. Maybe falling asleep at noon will get me closer to normal.”

Tommy guessed that Gordon would crash long before that, if his own lingering exhaustion was any indication, but he didn’t voice this aloud. Instead, he offered, “the breakfast buffet should be open,” and watched the other man’s expression brighten.

He volunteered to load down a few plates with food and bring them back to their room so they could eat with their privacy intact. Tommy made a note to remember what Gordon asked for - sausage and eggs, biscuits and gravy if they had any. Now that they no longer had to concern themselves with the immediacy of dying, Tommy wanted to memorize all of Gordon’s favorite things, learning them and tucking them away over time like he was supposed to. How he liked his coffee. If he even liked coffee at all.

There was time for this now. It was over. 

\---

When Tommy returned, paper plates in hand, he found Gordon sitting on the edge of the bed by the window and watching the news. The story was about an explosion in the New Mexico wilderness, out near Doña Ana County. He drew up beside him as the reporter mentioned something about the Black Mesa Research Facility.

Tommy didn’t expect the name to make him flinch, but it did. 

“Hey,” Gordon said, reaching for the remote and ticking down the volume. “We’re in the news.”

Tommy averted his eyes from the screen in distaste. “I - Can we turn that off?” he began. “I don’t - I’m not…” he paused, resorted his words, and tried again. “Sorry. I don’t want to hear about it right now.”

“Really?” Gordon asked, but he complied, hitting the power button and killing the feed. “I thought maybe you’d want to know if there were any survivors.”

“There weren’t,” Tommy said flatly. 

He wordlessly passed Gordon his breakfast plate before taking a seat beside him. The syrupy waffle he’d made for himself suddenly didn’t seem as appetizing as it did before, even as the pat of butter in the center melted and swirled hypnotically. 

Gordon accepted his food, but didn’t pay attention to its contents as he fixed Tommy with a questioning gaze. “How do you know?”

He picked at the waffle with his fork, not meeting the other man’s stare. “Dad told me,” he muttered. 

There was a long stretch of silence, in which Gordon worked through some thoughts, attempted to speak, and stopped to rework. The eggs and sausage he held remained untouched. Finally, he pulled in an unsteady breath and set the plate aside. “He told you how many people died,” he began, quietly, “but he didn’t… tell you anything about what was going on? So you could save them from dying?”

Tommy’s throat went suddenly tight. “I saved you,” was all he could say.

It was all that mattered to him. If he dwelled too long on all the people he failed to rescue in that week of nightmares, he’d wind up at the bottom of a pit he’d never crawl back out of. 

“You did,” Gordon agreed. He was staring at Tommy very intently, dark eyes burning like smoke from a car fire. “You did, Tommy. And I’m - god, I’m so glad you did, but like…”

He slid off the bed suddenly, taking Tommy’s food without resistance and setting their plates side by side on the desk by the TV. Returning his attention to Tommy in earnest, he carefully took Tommy’s hands in his, boring into him with that dark burning stare while the other man kept his gaze down. Like this, with Tommy sitting on the hotel bed and Gordon standing before him, they were almost the same height.

Okay, they were doing this. They were having this talk. 

“This hurt you, too,” Gordon said, and every word felt like a knife. “I don’t know what kind of fucked up game your dad was playing, but it hurt you, too. You should have had the option to leave.”

“I did,” Tommy admitted, barely audible. He studied the scarred fingers linked in his, unable to raise his eyes. “But you didn’t.”

Gordon’s grip tightened on Tommy’s hands as his words sunk in. His voice was edged with sorrow. “Tommy…”

“You didn’t have a choice and - and Bubby and Dr. Coomer didn’t and all the - every person who worked at Black Mesa didn’t get to just leave if they wanted to.” It wasn’t fair, didn’t make sense that Tommy of all people was saddled with the burden of choice and still decided to stay. An opportunity wasted on the likes of him. “I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I had to stay. I couldn’t just… leave you like that. E-Even if I didn’t know you very well.”

He dared a look at Gordon. His jaw was tight, brow darkened, anger lining the corners of his mouth, but it wasn’t directed at him. Outrage on his behalf, though Tommy didn’t feel his poor decision making was worth the sheer, burning heat of Gordon’s emotions. Gordon’s jaw worked silently, at a loss for words, still clinging tight to his hands. 

“I’m sorry,” Tommy went on quietly. “I’m sorry it had to be you.”

Gordon swallowed angrily as his words returned to him. “Why the fuck are you apologizing to me?” he asked. “None of this is your fault. Especially not all the fucked up shit  _ you _ had to go through.”

“Chose to go through-”

“Bullshit,” Gordon interrupted. “You didn’t  _ choose _ anything. You were expected to pick between leaving people behind to die or putting yourself through hell, Tommy. That’s not a choice,” he said. “For you? That was never a choice.”

His words fell steadily out of his mouth and into Tommy’s lap, where he could examine them in detail and find them to be true. He felt his chest constrict, and suddenly Gordon’s hands in his were the only thing tethering him as his resolve crumbled. 

Tommy didn’t sob outright. He didn’t weep. He broke apart quietly, hiccupping out shuddering gasps while his fingers shook. He leaned forward and buried his face in Gordon’s shoulder, strangled repetitions of  _ it’s not fair, it’s not fair _ murmured into his shirt. 

Gordon let him lean on him, strong and without judgment, freeing one of his hands to cradle the back of his head. “I know,” he whispered. “I know. It’s not your fault.”

Tommy hadn’t realized he had been blaming himself to begin with until he heard those words spoken with such conviction in his ear. And it wasn’t that he had been asking Gordon to forgive him, because he wasn’t even sure what he was apologizing for, but a part of him was stuck back at Black Mesa all the same, begging to come home.

It’s not fair. It’s not fair and it’s not your fault.

This was the absolution of a sin that was never committed. Tommy cried silently, heartbroken in his blamelessness. Gordon ran his fingers through his hair, sniffling softly as he cried, too, and they mourned together on the edge of the bed while their breakfast went cold. 

\---

They stayed at the hotel in Las Cruces for another week, using it as their home base while they took care of the necessary chores that came with rejoining the living. Trips to the bank to replace Gordon’s debit card. A few hours at the public library to use the computer lab. Gordon checked the news while Tommy browsed a shelf of paperback thrillers, still not ready to revisit what happened.

They tried new restaurants. They visited parks. They rediscovered the world and all its joys, and Tommy thought that maybe surviving the Resonance Cascade wasn’t always going to be a burden on his shoulders. While hand in hand with Gordon, laughing with him while he pointed out ground squirrels and gave them funny names, maybe the weight of living was worth it.

Eventually, they signed a lease after visiting the many apartment complexes Gordon had scribbled down on his notepad list. A quiet little place called Monte Vista near Guadalupe County. Perhaps here they could build the home they had fought so hard for. Tommy’s hand trembled as he filled out the paperwork. 

When it came time to check out from the hotel, the atmosphere was subdued, both absorbed in their thoughts about what the future held as they packed up their few belongings. They thanked this in between space for allowing them to become human again within its walls. As Tommy collected his things into a bag, his hand found the picture frame from earlier. 

“Here’s - Don’t forget Joshua,” he reminded Gordon, proffering it in his direction.

Gordon laughed as he took it. “My beautiful son,” he said, “I could never. Does this look like a face you could forget?” His smile showed his even teeth as he held up the stock photo beside his face. 

Tommy’s mouth quirked in a smile of his own. “I can see the family resemblance,” he said.

Lowering the frame, Gordon chuckled again. He fell silent as he studied the picture inside, his smile tinged with something that was almost wistful. His hair was tied back in a ponytail, showing off his round cheeks and those dimples he loved so much. Tommy watched him in contemplative silence. 

“Y’know,” Gordon finally began. “When I bought this for my locker - like, not this one, but the first one? I didn’t… have anything to put in there. So I just sorta left the stock photo in and hoped that like - y'know, maybe one day I could find something worth framing.”

Tommy didn’t really know how to respond to this, so he remained silent, watching the studious wrinkle in between Gordon’s brows deepen. There was a hesitant wonder behind the lenses of his glasses.

“Guess I can’t say that anymore, huh?” He raised his gaze to meet eyes with Tommy. He didn’t look sad, just tired. Hopeful. “Do you still have those selfies we took on your phone?”

He nodded. Of course he did. He’d never delete the first photographic evidence he had of this newfound happiness, their faces smushed cheek to cheek to fit in the shot, alight with laughter. It made his insides go soft, to hear that Gordon was as fond of them as he was. 

“Maybe we could get some prints of those,” Gordon said, stowing the frame in the grocery sack he carried with the rest of his few belongings. “If that’s okay with you?”

“Yeah,” Tommy said, fighting for control over his voice. He exhaled shakily, warm in the knowledge that Gordon wanted something permanent in its physicality, a reminder to look at every day. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

Piece by piece, they were going to build this new home together. Even with how painful the past was, how heavily the onus of survival rest on their shoulders. Tommy was looking forward to rediscovering joy again and again, with Gordon Freeman by his side.

He couldn’t wait to live.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as a sort of unofficial continuation of Good Jokes. I cried three separate times while drafting it. I hope this brought you the same catharsis it brought me.
> 
> Comments and feedback appreciated, thank you!


End file.
